A considerable quantity of cranberries is annually imported, into this country, from North America and Russia. These are larger than our own, of a different species, and by no means of so pleasant flavour.
124. There are three other species of fruit belonging to the cranberry tribe, which grow wild in this country, on heaths or in woods. These are BILBERRIES, or BLEA-BERRIES (_Vaccinium myrtillus_), which are occasionally eaten in milk, and in tarts, and which afford a violet-coloured dye: GREAT BILBERRIES (_V. uliginosum_), which, in France, are sometimes employed to tinge white wines red: and RED WHORTLE-BERRIES (_V. vitis idæa_), which, though not of very grateful flavour, are occasionally used in tarts, rob, and jelly.
125. _The COMMON HEATH, or LING_ (Erica vulgaris), _is a well-known plant, with numerous small rose-coloured flowers, which grows wild on heaths and mountainous wastes, in nearly every part of England._
The principal use to which the heath is applied is for making brooms or besoms. It is likewise bound into fagots, and employed as fuel, particularly for ovens; and is, not unfrequently, employed in the filling up of drains, and the morassy parts of roads, previously to their being covered with earth, stones, and other durable materials. In the Highlands of Scotland, the poorer inhabitants make walls, for their cottages, with alternate layers of heath and a kind of mortar made of black earth and straw: they likewise thatch their cabins with it, and make their beds of it. The inhabitants of Islay, one of the western islands of Scotland, are said to brew a wholesome kind of beer from one part of malt, and two parts of the young tops of heath. The _stalks_ and _tops_ may be rendered of considerable service in the tanning of leather; and in dyeing woollen cloth an orange colour. Bees are partial to the _flowers_; but the honey which they form, after having fed upon these flowers, acquires a reddish tint. The _leaves_ and _seeds_ of heath afford a grateful food to grouse, and other animals.
126. _BUCKWHEAT, or BRANK, is a black and triangular grain, produced by a plant of the persicaria tribe_ (Polygonum fagopyrum), _with somewhat arrow-shaped leaves, and purplish white flowers._